Students for a Democratic Society (2006 organization)

Students for a Democratic Society

Clenched fist logo
Abbreviation	SDS
Formation	2006
Type	Student activist organization
Purpose	To promote the active participation of young people in the formation of a movement to build a society free from poverty, ignorance, war, exploitation, racism, and sexism.
Location	United States of America
Membership	unknown, in the thousands
Website	NewSDS.org

New Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) is a United States student organization representing left wing ideals. It takes its name and inspiration from the original SDS of 1960–1969, then the largest radical student organization in US history. The contemporary SDS is a distinct youth and student-led organization with over 120 chapters worldwide.

Beginning January 2006, a movement to revive the Students for a Democratic Society took shape. Two high school students, Jessica Rapchik and Pat Korte, decided to reach out to former members of the "Sixties" SDS, to re-establish a student movement in the United States. Korte did this by contacting Alan Haber. They called for a new generation of SDS, to build a radical multi-issue organization grounded in the principle of participatory democracy. Several chapters at various colleges and high schools were subsequently formed. On Martin Luther King, Jr. Day of 2006, these chapters banded together to issue a press release that stated their intentions to recreate the national SDS organization. In the press release, the SDS called for the organization's first national convention since 1969 to be held in the summer of 2006 and to have it preceded by a series of regional conferences occurring during the Memorial Day weekend. These regional conferences would also be the first of their kind since 1969. On April 23, 2006, SDS held a northeast regional conference at Brown University.

Since its foundation in 2006, the organization's activities have centered on two broad areas. The first is building opposition to the US government-led wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, and neighboring countries in South Asia and the Middle East. The second area is advocating for "students rights", broadly defined. For example, SDSers have played a major role in the national movement against budget cuts and tuition hikes in education in the recent period. Practically speaking, each SDS chapter is additionally also involved in a variety of local issues having relevance to their particular area.